Exhausted&Lost

Chapter Fourteen

A/N: I felt like a mature rating was more appropriate for this chapter... oopsie. 

Her Sunday morning was like any other. Pancakes and smoothies with Elliott before heading in to work to do her paperwork, but today she elected to bring El with her since he was staying at her dad's tonight.

They stopped by the playground before she got to work, and she watched as her fearless little boy expertly maneuvered his way around the equipment. She knew it would tire him out a little, and then maybe... just maybe he would sit still enough to be entertained by the crayons and color books she had stuffed in her bag.

She dug in her pockets to find her phone and snapped a picture of him at the top of the slide, with a huge toothy grin on his face. She sent it to both her dad and Dave and gathered her stuff to begin the long process of trying to bribe Elliott out of the playground.

Once they got to The Hideout, Elliott headed straight for Ava's office so he could spin himself in her chair as he did every single time he was here. She shrugged her jacket off and hung it up before going to make herself a very large coffee.

She jumped out of her skin when she exited her office and saw Izzy standing behind the bar area loading the fridges.

"Christ!" she yelled, "What the bloody hell are you doing here?"

Izzy laughed and she stood from her crouched position behind the counter.

"Milk delivery came a day early, they called this morning to say it would be here by noon."

"Why didn't you call me? You knew I'd be here," Ava said, still a little breathless from getting scared half to death.

"Because then I wouldn't be able to hear all the dirty details about your affair with a rockstar," Izzy teased with a sly smile.

Ava threw the cloth she was using to wipe off the steam wand at her and settled back down into her office where Elliott was sprawled on the floor with his crayons.

"Not an affair," Ava started, knowing that Izzy was only teasing, but still feeling the need to reiterate it, "but there are plenty of dirty details."

Izzy sat forward in her seat as Ava filled her in on their last few encounters, leaving out some details that were a little too X-Rated.

"Do you do anything other than have incredible sex?" Izzy said bitterly, whining about how unfair it was that she didn't have a sexy musician to show her a good time every night.

"It isn't every night! And we do other stuff... it just usually ends with us having incredible sex," Ava laughed.

*

Her heart pounded in her chest as she pulled Elliott's little backpack off of the peg in the hallway to shove a few snacks, diapers, and wipes in to so she could wait for her dad to pick him up.

She brushed a curl away that was sticking to the gloss on her lips and she urged herself to calm down. She was so full of nervous excitement in her anticipation to see Dave this evening, she was afraid she might burst before she even got there.

"Mama, pretty," Elliott cooed, with the sweetest smile as he tugged on the charcoal grey shirt dress that she had chosen to wear for the night. Her heart doubled in size as she scooped him up in her arms, trying to ignore the way her back twinged in protest now that he was getting too big to carry around anymore.

She held on tight until her door knocked, indicating that her dad had arrived to collect him, and she pushed down the ache she felt as she watched them leave.